


you are the survivor of more than one life

by ohmcgee



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman Beyond, DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 00:45:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5354492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmcgee/pseuds/ohmcgee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terry is young and he’s brash and he’s <i>beautiful</i>, but Bruce can’t keep pretending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are the survivor of more than one life

**Author's Note:**

> For Rachel, who wanted Jason reincarnated as Terry. I hope...this is that? IDK IDK

The first time Terry says _sure thing, boss,_ Bruce drops the prototype he was holding and Terry makes some quip about his reflexes and his age as he picks up the pieces, but Bruce can’t shake that feeling for the rest of the day, like there had been a ghost in the room with them. 

By dinnertime he brushes it off as nerves, Terry’s first official night out in the suit making him even more paranoid than usual, but that night he dreams of blue, blue eyes and laughter like sunshine, a smile that could hold all the world’s secrets, and he wakes up in a cold sweat.

He can’t go back to sleep so Bruce makes a cup of tea that reminds him of early mornings and sore muscles and everything he doesn’t have anymore, then heads down to the cave to busy his mind from memories he’s buried for too long to let resurface now. 

 

: : :

 

There are similarities, of course, and all the jokes that go along with them ( _gee Bruce, you sure have a type_ ), but the fact of the matter is Bruce didn’t go looking for this one. Terry found him. Found him, then helped him, then _stole_ from him, which --

Bruce tries not to think about too hard. 

He tries not to think about the last time a reckless boy with a mess of black hair had the audacity to steal something right out from under him. He tries not to think about the green flecks in Terry’s eyes, about the way he cocks his hip against the counter while he takes a bite of apple. The smirk just in the corner of his mouth when he knows Bruce is staring. 

Terry’s not --

He’s _not_. Bruce is just a lonely, senile old man and that’s all there is to it. Terry is young and he’s brash and he’s _beautiful_ , but Bruce can’t keep pretending. It isn’t good for him and it isn’t fair to Terry, so he stops. 

He stops looking for things. Stops looking at all, just to be safe. He still dreams almost every night, of kisses that taste like Coca Cola and bubblegum, still wakes up smelling the faint scent of cigarette smoke, but he pushes it down along with the rest of his neuroses. 

He tinkers with things in the cave and he goes over Terry’s video feeds until he knows them frontwards and backwards, until he can tell Terry exactly what he did wrong so that next time he won’t, so that maybe, this one won’t end up like the others. 

He’s more worried now than ever and he’s doing his best to ignore why that might be. 

 

: : :

 

Terry kisses him in the cave, after a particularly brutal night that lands him with a few bruised ribs, just tilts his head as Bruce is wrapping him up in gauze and kisses him, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like they do it all the time. Or they always have.

“Huh,” Terry says, reaching up to touch his mouth. He almost looks confused. “Why haven’t we done that before?”

Bruce just sighs and for a moment he lets himself pretend, cups Terry’s face in his hand, opens his mouth up and kisses him slow and deep, soft, but with years and years of yearning behind it, kisses him until Terry clutches the front of Bruce’s shirt and gasps against his mouth and then Bruce pulls away. 

“We have,” Bruce says quietly and leaves Terry alone to get dressed, ignoring the mixed look of confusion and disappointment on his face. 

 

: : :

 

It doesn’t happen suddenly. Or slowly. It happens in bits here and there, in glimpses that Bruce later figures he must have imagined. Sometimes there will be a certain expression on Terry’s face, a very specific word he’s never used before (that no one’s used in decades) or just the simple act of tying his shoes, tucking the laces down inside of them instead of double knotting them the way Terry always had before. 

Bruce lives in a constant state of deja vu and more often than not, considers having himself committed. It’s dementia, he’s sure of it. Or worse, the truth. That he’s just a pathetic, lonely old man who wants to see things that aren’t there. 

For the dozenth time that night, before he goes to bed, before he dreams of chili dogs on rooftops and soft, small hands pushing the cowl off his face, Bruce tells himself he’s being foolish. Tomorrow he’ll put a stop to whatever he allowed to happen between him and Terry and he’ll distance himself.

Everything will go back to normal. 

 

: : :

 

Bruce wakes up to the smell of hot coffee and for a moment, he thinks he’s still dreaming. He hasn’t been able to make a decent pot of coffee since -- well, he was never able to make a decent pot of coffee. But it smells like Alfred’s and Bruce lets his fingernails bite into the skin of his palm just to make sure he’s awake before he slides out of bed and pulls on a robe before making his way down stairs. 

Once he gets halfway down the stairs, coffee isn’t all he smells. There’s also the sound of bacon or possibly sausage sizzling in a pan and something that smells absolutely mouth-watering, definitely not comparable to the cup of tea and oatmeal he normally has for breakfast. 

When he gets to the kitchen, Bruce comes to a dead stop.

Terry is standing in front of the stove, a pair of earbuds in his ears, rocking his hips back and forth as he hums the words to the song, something he had to have downloaded from an oldies station, turning the sausage over in one pan, then flipping an omelet in another. 

Bruce moves without thought, as if by muscle memory even after all this time, moves up behind Terry and curls his hand around his hip, presses his mouth to the nape of his neck and whispers _Jay_ , into his skin, his eyes squeezed shut. 

He half expects Terry to clock him. Or worse, to look down on him pityingly. 

“Well yeah,” Jay says -- it’s Jay now, _his_ Jay, finally. Just Jay. “You know anyone else who looks this cute in a checkered apron?”

Bruce _growls_ and grabs him by the waist, lifts Jay up and sets him on the counter, frames Jay’s face between his hands and presses their foreheads together. “I’ve missed you _so_ much,” Bruce breathes out like he’s been holding the words in for centuries, doesn’t wait for Jay to reply before he’s kissing him again, kissing _him_ this time, his mouth, his face, his eyelids, everywhere Jay will let him.

“B,” Jay giggles, poking him in the belly with the spatula. “My eggs are burning.”

“I don’t care,” Bruce says and kisses him again. And again and again. “Let the house burn down around us.”

“That’d be dumb,” Jay just laughs and reaches behind him to turn the stove off, Bruce following him with his mouth, to pepper kisses down the column of his throat. 

“When did you remember?”

“Dunno,” Jay shrugs, hooking his ankles behind Bruce’s back. “It was weird. Just little flickers at first, then kind of like flashes. I kept having these dreams --”

“Yes,” Bruce says, running his fingers through Jay’s hair. It’s different now, not as curly, but still just as soft. “I’ve had those too.”

“And then when you kissed me.”

“Yes?” Bruce asks, wanting nothing more but to do that again, to do nothing _but_ that ever again. 

“I just kind of woke up,” Jay says, linking his fingers in between Bruce’s. “All of me.”

Bruce kisses him again because he can’t stand not to, squeezes Jay’s hands in his -- still so soft, so small -- brings them up to his mouth and kisses the back of each hand, each knuckle. 

“I’m taking you bed now,” Bruce says, almost not recognizing his own voice. He sounds forty years younger. He sounds completely _wrecked_. “I plan on spending the rest of the day and possibly the rest of the week learning this new body of yours, inside and out.”

“ _Bruce_ \--”

“I wonder if you’re still ticklish here,” Bruce says and ghosts the tips of his fingers right beneath the hem of Jason’s shirt, into the little hollow of his hip, and Jay shrieks and shoves Bruce away, but all Bruce can do is smile. He hasn’t truly smiled in so long he wasn’t sure if he’d remember how. Now he isn’t sure if he’ll ever stop. 

“Right,” Bruce says, grabbing Jay and throwing him over his shoulder. “Bed.”

“Beast,” Jason mutters, but he grins the whole way up the stairs.

 

: : :

 

Once they get to the bedroom, Bruce wants nothing more than to get Jay naked and just wrap around him, feel the hot press of skin against skin, to taste every inch of him, but once he starts to undress him Bruce gets lost in worshipping this gift he was given, takes his time sliding Jay’s pants off and lifting his leg up, pressing a kiss to the arch of his foot. He looks down into Jason’s eyes as he presses another kiss to his ankle, another to the back of his knee. 

“Bruce,” Jason whines, but Bruce just sets his leg down and starts to unbutton Jay’s shirt, pausing to kiss him between each button, then leaving a trail of wet kisses down his throat as he pushes Jay’s shirt open, tracing his silhouette with scarred, wrinkled hands, making him shudder. He moves down to suck kisses on the inside of Jason’s thighs, in the hollow of each of his hips, until Jason is trembling and leaking all over his belly. 

“ _B_ ,” Jay gasps and Bruce swallows him down, moans at the heat and salt of him and Jay just buries his hands in Bruce’s hair and says his name over and over, crying it loudly when he shakes apart beneath Bruce’s strong hands and comes for him. 

“Jay,” Bruce says, his throat marvelously wrecked, stroking Jason’s side as he comes back to himself. “I need -- I need to feel you.”

Jason just nods, sits up far enough to hold Bruce’s face in his hands, to kiss him slow and lazy. “I need it too.“

When Bruce finally pushes inside of him, after nearly embarrassing himself just from the noises Jay had been making for him with two of Bruce’s fingers in him, when he finally sinks into the tight, slick heat of him, Bruce blinks and feels the warmth of a tear sliding down his cheek. 

“I'm sorry I took so long,” Jason says as he looks up at him, thumbing away the tears. 

Bruce smiles down at him sadly. “I got old.”

“Yeah,” Jay says, reaching back to tug at his hair. “But I got stupid hair. “

Bruce just laughs, a full body kind of laugh that jostles both of them, kisses Jason in the middle of his forehead. “I love you.“

“I know,” Jason says with a wry little smirk and Bruce laughs again. 

“Now I know it's you.”

“You had doubts?” Jason asks, cocking an eyebrow at him. 

“With you?” Bruce says, leaning down to murmur against Jason’s lips, “Not ever.”


End file.
